My new feeling is that I want to make my own cities of death plates and mold them so that I can make my own cities of death buildings. The reasons for this is obvious: they'll sell, they won't cost $50 a building, I can do a better job, etc.. But it does bring up some rather interesting points about scenery design that I'm not really sure many people get into and so I thought I'd bring up some of the issues that this project has ultimately brought up.
The first trick is, how is such a thing done?
I'd like to point out an interesting fiasco of scenery designers the world over and that is the assumption that everything designed must be complete in and of itself. Hirst Arts, a company that I believe nigh-god-like, is just as likely to make this mistake as Games Workshop or even Forgeworld. If you read the Hirst Arts page about how to make things, they have directions for how to make flat blank walls. This I do not need. I have foam core, I have sheet styrene, I have pink styrofoam (as well as white styrofoam and Dupont board). I can make, with ease, walls that are unadorned of any sized. Thus I do not need to presss out hundreds of "blank" tiles to fill in the "blank" areas of the scenery. I have that covered.
The problem is that these companies are not thinking with the right philosophy. They are attempting to have you build EVERYTHING using their product. Every bit of your futuristic landscape should be popped out of a Hirst Mold. Every piece of your Cities of Death building should be cut from the GW sprues. Why?
It's much easier to make the basic "no frills" shape of the building out in regular materials that are easy to work with and then dress it up using a piece here from whatever sci-fi scenery set you want to buy. This allows your bit bin to include pieces from various legos sets as well as star wars models, Hirst arts castings, Cities of Death snippits, beads, craft store jewelry making supplies, hardware bits, dollar store items, etc.. In short, you are not thinking of the building altogether, completed with shape, volume and detail. You need only think of the building's shape first and then figure out how you want to spruce it up. Maybe you spruce it up with Cities of Death pieces. That's fine. But with a skeleton of the building already in place, you don't need to cover it entirely. And believe me, a few Cities of Death pieces will go a long way.
To give you some idea of how not in this frame of mind GW is, look at any Cities of Death piece. It's two sided. Why? Wouldn't it be easier to make it one sided and just glue it to some kind of superstructure, be it foamcore or board? Wouldn't that make the piece more structurally sound, and wouldn't that allow the building to have areas of "blank space" so that the entire city doesn't look plastered with those same five frescos (three of which are pretty much the same from any set)"? A ground floor that is composed of skull backed arches would be interesting, but a whole building of such pieces looks odd. Plus, this way, the detail doesn't obviously come in little 3"x2" blocks. You can have molding underneath over which rests a ground floor of high ornamentation seperated by some line of relief with a second ruined story with a continuous brick face.
But GW's design does not allow for such an option. The back, having detail, will not sit flush unless ground down, and of course, you don't want to grind the detail down. The floor tiles of Hirst Arts, I think, betray the problem with their ideas on the subject. You're making a battleship floor plan a square inch at a time. I remember making the plan I have on my home page, it was several dozen castings and it really didn't even cover a quarter of a 40k table. I can do similar things with screen (either nylon or mesh), some flex rex, and maybe a few pieces here and there that look like storm drains. Plus I can cover an entire 40k table with this setup and do so in an afternoon. Hell, you'd be surprised what you can do with just the cheap 1' square lynoleum tile pieces they sell at the dollar store. All with the advantage that nothing has to be ground down to make the floor level.
So, this is step one I think for a builder of their own city fight pieces. Don't think of building the entire urban landscape using only these pieces--it's too much and no set is that versatile--rather, think of your project as an attempt to make interesting bits of detail to add to an otherwise featureless building shape. Then, if you want "inside" detail, you can worry about that after you've already insured your ruins structural integrity.
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3 comments:
I think the one thing that the GW buildings have when they are put together is unity. By that I mean that they actually look like they belong together, came from the same era or were built at the same time. This creates for nice "looking" over all cities. When you focus your attention down to a single building or section of buildings then I can see the details of the building are repetitive, but on a larger more city level view, like if you are taking pictures of your battle, then it looks visually appealing if the buildings are well painted.
I am not disagreeing with your very valid points from your post. I am just giving another view from someone like myself that is not a scenery designer/builder...
No, no, I'm with you. The GW Cities of Death pieces are beautiful. I wouldn't be attempting to make my own if I thought otherwise. My problem is that they won't lay flush against a flat surface. If they were to do that, you could put them against a building skeleton and space them, if you'd like, to insert things (pipes, molding, caging, etc.) between them. Now if you make details to add to the building, you have to make them two sided just like the COD pieces.
But, oh don't get me wrong. While it may be the same nine pieces (and some broken variations) thereof, they are incredible looking.
Hey Q, dude, your blog has become impossible to comment on. I can't find a way to casually let you know that I'm reading; all your blog posts seem fairly personal and I don't feel like interjecting myself into heartfelt conversations between friends, so I'm telling you here: sorry about your eyes and I hope your feeling better.
Hmm, I don't think those companies want you to build only with their products. Take GW - see the Cities of Death articles on their website, you will notice they actually 'encourage' you to use different materials and show how to use less parts from cities of death sets.
They usually give you general advice on how to begin using their product, by showing how to build simple structures. I prefer making something simple and already made by someone else, before I switch to improvisation.
Lots of people don't need improvisation at all - they just use the basic structures and are happy with it.
The other thing is they at least show and explain how to build, and I didn't see any examples of Cities of Death here with explanations and photos on how you made it. Maybe you should post those - because lots of people search for it when they start their terrain projects. Although that Eldar building is nice indeed.
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